


Toward the Morning

by ninemoons42



Series: Night and Day - Charlotte Eyre [2]
Category: Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Disguise, F/M, Genderswap, Gothic, Inspired by Art, Intrigue, Pastiche, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-10
Updated: 2011-10-10
Packaged: 2017-10-24 11:36:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/263016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42





	Toward the Morning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [madsmurf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsmurf/gifts).



  
title: Toward the Morning  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**ninemoons42**](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)  
word count: 3974  
fandoms: X-Men: First Class [movieverse], Jane Eyre  
pairing: Charles Xavier/Erik Lehnsherr [as Charlotte Eyre/Erik Rochester]  
rating: PG-13  
notes: sequel to [Out of Darkness](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/186347.html), the Gothic pastiche I did for dear [](http://madsmurf.livejournal.com/profile)[**madsmurf**](http://madsmurf.livejournal.com/). [Related graphics [here](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/tagged/Charlotte_Eyre).] The story of Charlotte Eyre comes full circle.

  
When I rose and looked at myself in the glass it was imperative that I look around my chambers, into which the rosy morning light had crept in its sure hope of welcome; it was imperative that I draw the curtains aside and peer out at the lightening sky and the broad sweep of Xavier House’s bourne.

Perhaps time alone would be able to tell if I were doing well by this house and by its inhabitants. Such a duty I had been charged with – a stern trust, sealed with honor – and every day without fail I felt I had to renew my vows.

Oh, my poor lost master and mistress. Though time had softened the twin blows of their deaths, I felt their steps in these halls still. Perhaps they were watching over their daughter, over my fair Rebecca Xavier – and perhaps they wished to watch over my shoulders, as well. I thought of them thus in the mornings and in the evenings, as I glanced over my home and the land that I knew well, and in my heart I prayed they were satisfied with my feeble work in their stead.

The sun rose over the fields and I put on such a dress as I thought would suit the gentle character of the day, a gift from Rebecca at Christmas: a plain linen dress in deepest blue – “It suited my eyes”, she had said – and I smiled at myself as I did up my hair, as I fastened my little jet ornament on, and I ran down the hall to see how my ward was doing.

Fair Rebecca! I looked forward to knocking at her door in the mornings, for then she would give me her heart in her smile, her love in her hands.

“Oh, Charlotte!” she exclaimed when I went to her; fair to rival even the rose of the rising sun. Such pride I had in her, if pride I could claim in this world. My sweet rose, my sister and my friend all at once. Her handsome face, brightened by her intelligence and the wisdom she had been cultivating these past few years.

I sat her down at her dresser and took up the comb for her dark, lustrous hair, and so we began the day once more, speaking of the house and of ribbons for her hair and mine. I laughed, and gently brushed her inquisitive hands away.

“Why will you not wear ribbons, dearest,” she asked, laughing and affectionate. “Am I not allowed to dress you as befits the mistress of this house?”

“I am old, Rebecca,” I said, smiling at her in the mirror, “and ribbons would suit me as they would an old tree hung in lace and curtains for a ballroom. No, child, keep your ribbons and wear them as is your due – they are the right ornaments for you, as jet suits me now.”

“My somber Charlotte,” she said as she rose and seized up my hand, to touch against her blushing cheek. “I must agree that it suits you so, though I do not know how, for you are one-and-twenty and quite a dashing lady.” And then she smiled, suddenly as mischievous as a mockingbird’s song. “I am sure that if I asked at Westchesterfield yonder, I might find a pleasing answer,” and she ran laughing down to her breakfast.

As I followed in her wake, I passed the many windows thrown open to admit fresh light and gentle wind, and looked to the horizon once more. Ah, friendly welcoming warmth and beauty, balm to my eyes. Summer spread her blue wings over Xavier House and its fields. Endless skies dotted with white clouds, endless green hills dotted with color and vibrant life.

“Must we have lessons today, Charlotte?” Rebecca asked as we lingered over our teacups. “I would rather be out of doors, on a rare summer’s day of high renown.”

“Philosophy and languages wait for no one,” I said, smiling, “and neither will your embroidery. Mistress Frost has been waiting for those kerchiefs you promised her.”

“But Charlotte!”

“We must continue with our course of study, not to mention our daily work – but if you wish we may perhaps make of the gardens a more genial workroom, and recite our French and German under blue skies.”

“Oh, yes,” Rebecca said, and I smiled as she leapt up and began to collect her books from the schoolroom. I followed her in more stately fashion, and while I was tying on my bonnet I asked the kitchen for a basket of delicacies such as we could carry easily in the fields – and Cook smilingly obliged me.

Rebecca’s face was wreathed in smiles even as we met outside the great doors of the house, and I, too, felt that I had to laugh in her sunny, satisfied wake.

There was a great linden-tree in one of the farther gardens, up a gentle slope that lent me, when I turned back to look over my shoulder, a fair view of our home and of its pastoral surroundings. Rebecca skipped happily to it – I could not help but smile back – she was fourteen now, and heading on to her majority, and yet she was still so full of vivacity and life and I was beginning to entertain the mild hope that she would perhaps bring that happiness, that stout heart, well into her adult years.

She was singing a gay French air to the accompaniment of my clapping hands when she suddenly stopped and shaded her eyes as she looked back down to the road leading to the gates of Xavier House. “Charlotte! Come here, and tell me what I see.”

I set my books and my workbasket aside and strode to her side – and then Rebecca was laughing and shaking off her wide-brimmed hat, waving it and its trailing veil and ribbons. “Hello, Rochester!”

I laughed and pinched her gently on the arm, and I covered my smile when the man on the path below turned, and lifted off his own hat to us.

Erik, my Erik, and the smile on his face that was as welcome as the summer sun and its warmth on my hands.

“Shall I withdraw to some corner of the garden,” Rebecca asked, a teasing light in her eyes, “and leave you and him to your conversation? It seems to me you will be a little occupied, and will not notice that I am mispronouncing my verbs again.”

I laughed and clasped her close to my heart. “Do not go far, my dear. Settle in some shaded nook and do your work peacefully, and I shall come to you by-and-by.”

“I hope he will make you forget that,” Rebecca said, smiling, and then she snatched up her workbasket and sailed away. Perhaps I indulged her too much – but perhaps no harm could come of me giving her a brief holiday, of letting her follow her own good sense.

And so I was when a well-known shadow fell over me and the book in my hands. I put on a false stern face and said, not looking up, “You have been away too long, truant sir, and perhaps you have only now remembered us?”

“Why, is this Miss Charlotte of Xavier House who comes to meet me with such barbed words, when I have hastened over hill and field just to find her?” And there was a laugh, and hands snatching my book away, and I looked up and Erik was laughing and pretending to be affronted. “Perhaps I should not have come back at all, if I were to return to such an icy welcome, such a contrast to this beautiful hour.”

“Oh, Erik,” I said, and I sprang to my feet and into his arms, and once again I felt the sweet bliss of being so close to my beloved. “You are a week overdue, and all have been frantic with worry: Rebecca and Mistress Frost and myself. What trouble befell you in London? Is all well?”

“All is well for now – I have made my report to Aunt Emma, and she seems satisfied with the judgment rendered against Shaw for his crimes.”

I looked carefully into his face and shook my head. “You are not, Erik.”

“I knew you would understand,” he said, and he pressed a grateful kiss to my cheek. “I always know I can place my confidence in you, Charlotte. No, I am not satisfied. That villain seemed altogether too calm as he was led away in chains; I remembered his terrible, false smiles, his rage when we discovered his ruse. I feel there will be trouble from him yet in the future, though he be walled up in some lonely prison cell.”

“It will be for us to watch and be ever on the alert, then,” I said, and I put my hand on Erik’s coat, over his beating heart. “And howsoever he plots we, too, shall lay plans against him; we shall be ready for him at all times. As for today, though, you have found us here, and there is a fine day to enjoy, if you wish to spend it with us.”

I saw the clouds clear from his stormy brow; I soothed the fear and the anxiety from his shoulders. At length Erik said, “You are right, Charlotte; let us put him away from our minds for the moment. My dearest blue-flower, how I have missed you every moment that I was in London. To see you now fills my heart with strength and light; I feel that when I am with you it will be possible for me to do all things.”

“And I feel the same, Erik,” I said, gently, and let him raise my hands to his lips.

///

As the turn of that year approached, we began to see more communication from Westchesterfield, and one day Mistress Frost came to us with Erik at her side, and Rebecca and I made haste to welcome them and seat them near a good fire. Gentle as the summer and the autumn had been, winter now seemed intent on asserting its powers, and the fields between our house and theirs slumbered in a deep, freezing cold.

Both our visitors were dressed in their winter finery, and the firelight broke against Mistress Frost’s jewels into a storm of sparkling colors. She smiled upon us with her habitual cool kindness. “Thank you for making us welcome here,” she said. “It is always more pleasant to spend time with one’s own family and dearest friends, and especially in a winter such as this that has come so early.”

“Xavier House will always welcome you, Aunt,” Rebecca said, proffering the tea. “May we hear the latest news from Westchesterfield?”

She smiled, and looked at me. “As to that, well, it is your guardian we have come here to see, on a formal and important matter.”

“I, Mistress Frost?” I said. “What may I do for you? Ask and it shall be my pleasure.”

“Now that is good news to hear. Erik?”

I had been standing near the fire, facing the other three – Rebecca at her Aunt’s side and Erik standing over them both. Now he drew near, and when I looked at him he seemed both calm and agitated at the same time; there was an unfamiliar high flush in his face.

I called his name, and he looked at me, and then – suddenly he took my hands in both of his and said, simply, “Will you marry me, Charlotte Eyre? Will you stay at my side? Will you let me be your companion?”

“Erik,” I said again, and I looked at him, at his earnest face and his entreating eyes. I looked beyond him, to the happy and expectant faces of my Rebecca and of Mistress Frost, and I addressed my query to them both. “You will not object? You wish this union to take place?”

Mistress Frost rose and stood behind her nephew. “It would please me very much to think of you as a daughter and as a member of the family.”

“Rebecca?”

“Oh, say yes,” was her reply, and the firelight seemed to be gladdened by the sweet smile on her face.

I turned back to Erik, to the hope in his eyes. “Am I to be your wife and your equal?”

“Yes,” he said. “For there is nothing in this world that I value more highly than the truth that you carry within your heart.” And he drew me close. “Please, say yes.”

“I will,” I said, and I dared to claim a kiss from him then.

///

Erik and I had been married three years when I turned to him and said, “I will have to ask leave of you so that I may begin work on something that I have been preparing for since I came to this place.”

He smiled and looked up at me from his desk full of papers and account-books. “It is not like you to ask for permission, my darling; I am used to letting you go your way and with good reason, for your decisions often bear such bounteous fruit.”

I was at the window of our study in Xavier House – for thither he had moved to join Rebecca and me, after we were wed – and he came to me, and we looked down at the gardens below, where Rebecca herself was preparing to go out riding with one of the servants. “I do not know how else she will be exposed to society – I do not expect her to make a match so suddenly or so easily – but she must have the company of young people her own age. I am loath to leave this house and you, but I must steel myself and do my final duty by her.”

Erik laughed quietly as he went to join me. “Leave me? I’ll not let you go that easily. I will come up to London with you, if that is your wish, and together we will make plans for your ward’s future.”

“And who will manage Xavier House if we are both gone, beloved?”

He produced a letter from one of the books on the desk. “I have only been waiting for you to ask, Charlotte. Aunt Emma has managed two households before – Westchesterfield and my establishment in London – so we may turn over the management of this house to her. I have not had a chance to show you the London quarters in any case. We can look after Rebecca there as easily as we do here.”

I smiled and kissed him fondly. “You have thought of everything.”

“I will take that as a compliment from my patient and dutiful Charlotte.”

///

I had never been to London before, and neither had Rebecca – we were quite put out of our natural environments when we came to that great and bustling city, but with Erik’s patient assistance it became possible to think of more practical and urgent matters. It was good to come to the house, to Thorndean, where all was in readiness for us, as though it had been our primary abode all this time, only waiting for Erik or for me to turn the key in the lock and enter.

Armed with Miss Emma’s knowledge and wise advice, we set out to announce Rebecca to society, and so I readied myself to watch carefully over those who presented themselves to her as friends and suitors.

“And so there are six,” Erik said after some few weeks at Thorndean. I sat with Rebecca by the fire, practicing our French, and we both looked up when he began to speak quietly. “You will certainly be spoilt for choice.”

“You are obliged to no one to make a decision, not even to us,” I said to Rebecca once we had finished the chapter. “Remember that, and remember to trust your mind and your heart.”

Rebecca was silent for a few moments, and I got up and asked the footman to have our supper brought in – and while Erik and I were clearing the table she rose, and put her hand in mine. “Charlotte.”

“Rebecca.”

“What if I trust myself and not – not one of them?”

“Then if you wish to end your Season early,” Erik said, “we can make preparations to return to Xavier House now, and begin again here next year. That might be more suitable for you, because by then we may let people know you are not merely looking for a match.”

“No, no, that is not what I meant. I – one of the six does not quite seem to be completely trustworthy,” Rebecca said.

When I looked up Erik was already looking at me, steel in his eyes, and I said, quietly, “Shaw?”

“Let us hope not,” he said, and he began to pace. “Which one, Rebecca?”

“The boy from Hungary, the boy who sings gypsy songs,” she said promptly. “Janos Quested. How unfortunate that he should be named so, for his name alone already makes me suspicious. Do you think he is aware of it...or of you?”

“We shall learn soon enough,” Erik said, and he put his hand on Rebecca’s head in thanks and in warning. “I will try to look into his family and his connexions – but as for talking to him, I do not know where to start.”

“That, my dear,” I said, already thinking of plans and ruses, “you may leave to me.”

Erik looked at me, and smiled. How like a lion he was then, how like a marauder. One that Rebecca and I could readily trust with our lives, since he had pledged himself to our defense.

///

Erik had been gone from Thorndean two days when a gypsy-woman appeared at the back door; Rebecca and I exchanged looks, and I politely excused myself from the game of billiards and followed the servant girl to the back door.

“Come back soon, Mistress Rochester,” one of the players said. “This game would lose its piquancy without your eye over the proceedings.”

I inclined my head to red-haired Sean Cassidy, and said, “You flatter me, sir. I will be back shortly.”

The gypsy was hunched over by the fire, warming her large hands, and I approached her with dread and with caution. “How may I help you, madam,” I began to say – and then she seized my hand – I felt the impression of well-worn fingers, the peculiar pattern of rings and calloused skin. Oh, but I knew “her”, then.

“Disguised like this,” and now Erik was whispering to me, scratchy and grave and disguised, “I may well remain unrecognized by our guests. But favor me, beloved, place me in the small sitting room, and have the lamps snuffed out. I will sit before the fire, and so my face will be all in shadow.”

It was a few minutes’ work to set everything in readiness, and then I returned to the parlor and announced the new arrival. The young men immediately set up a chorus of amusement and disbelief, yet in the end they pushed one of their own number forward. Armando Munoz, who looked like a Moorish prince and treated Rebecca with distant respect – he was not interested in her as a match, but shared her interest in books and mathematics – presented himself to me with a bow, and I waved him away.

When he returned, somewhat amused, the others took heart and one by one they went to speak with the “gypsy”. Only Janos shook his head – and that was when I saw my chance, and I drew him aside. “Perhaps you might be too used to the games fortune-tellers play,” I said in my kindliest voice.

“After a while, Mistress,” he said, in his soft accents, “it becomes no more than blandishment.”

“I do not believe in them myself; they are harmless amusements,” I said. “Now, since you and I hold ourselves aloof from such pursuits, perhaps you might tell me about what it is you believe in. Hold forth about your philosophies, if you please, and I shall be your willing listener.”

“Strength is all, Mistress,” he said, “but strength is not confined to brute endeavor or to glib tongues. Strength is also in survival; and in the pursuit of that survival one may be permitted to follow methods that others will find distasteful at the first, but will become more apparently correct as time goes on.”

“And who is to judge strength, in the end?” I asked, keeping my face placid and my voice gentle, though all my heart was rebelling and sick with fear.

“History, which is written by those who are victorious.” The boy smiled. “A hard lesson to learn, but in the end, it is worth the time and the pain.”

“And would you teach my Rebecca of this, were you to be matched?”

“Of course,” he said, and looked me challengingly in the eyes.

“Then I wish you all success.”

By then Rebecca had returned from the sitting-room, and she came to me and laid her hand on my shoulder. “She wishes to speak with you, Charlotte.”

“I must make sure to cross her palm with silver,” I said, lightly, and as I turned away from Janos I hurriedly whispered to Rebecca: “If you speak with him, make sure you are not alone.”

In the small sitting room, I made sure to lock the door silently.

Erik was on his feet and at my side suddenly. “You are pale, beloved – has all gone well?”

“If by well you mean that we have our proof.” And I told him what Janos had said, word for word.

“That is exactly as Shaw believed,” Erik said, and the color was gone from his face even beneath the heavy darkness of his disguise. “No wonder you look sickened, my Charlotte. Well, we shall soon be finished here. Allow me some time to change and to present myself properly, and I will return to the others and have done with this matter.”

“Don’t go, Erik. Not yet,” I said, quietly.

I watched as my husband took off his wraps and the cloth tied around his head – slowly I could see his well-loved face once again, even through his disguise – and he pulled me close to his heart. “Take strength from me, beloved,” he said, whispering into my hair. “Let me lend my hand to the one who has sustained me, for I defy the world and its little scorns and little prides to laugh that I place my heart in your safekeeping. Let them mock. You alone know the truth. And now let me be of service to you.”

///

I had never been happier to return to Xavier House at last, and in the company of both Erik and Rebecca. My girl seemed subdued, though I thought she would be quietly triumphant at having her instincts carry the day.

“I am happy, Charlotte,” she said, just as we were setting off to bed. “But I am also thinking that I have so very, very much to learn, in order to be as good as you.”

“Trust that you are well on your way,” Erik said, gently.

I took her in my arms and gave her a kiss. “We can but continue to work and to hope, and remind you that we will always be here to help you and guide you.”

“Thank you, Charlotte,” Rebecca said. “I would not be where I am right now if not for you.”

“Nor I,” Erik said, quietly.

Tears stood in my eyes at these avowals, and I felt that I loved both of them so well and so completely that I could not ask for anything more.

 _fin_   



End file.
